She became known at one point in her career as “The World’s Prettiest Photographer.” But the accomplishments of Bunny Yeager — the Miami Beach artist, model, feminist pioneer and icon — can’t be summed up with one simple, reductive label.
“Naked Ambition,” the exhilarating new documentary by South Florida-based co-directors Dennis Scholl and Kareem Tabsch, explores the life and work of Yeager, a married mother of two who began her career as a model, then progressed to walking up to random women and asking them to pose for her.
Her snaps — as well as the photos in which she appeared — combined a virginal view of domestic goddesses who were also wellsprings of teenage rebellion. They also accomplished everything from popularizing bikinis to creating the idea of the modern-day selfie.
Among her models was the notorious Bettie Page, the S&M photo star who met Yeager during a visit to Miami Beach and became one of her most popular subjects, including a “Playmate of the Month” stint in 1955 in Playboy magazine (Yeager snapped that picture as well).
“There’s something inherently female about the way she sees her models,” says Hollywood actress and screenwriter Guinevere Turner about Yeager in the film, which opens Friday, Sept. 26, at Cinema Paradiso Hollywood, O Cinema Miami Beach and Coral Gables Art Cinema.
By the time of her death at age 85 in 2014, Yeager had become one of the most influential and famous photographers in the world. Her photos — convivial images of women, often topless, caught in a joyful, sunny mood — have been exhibited in museums and galleries around the world.
“Naked Ambition” is the second collaboration between Scholl, the former president/CEO of Oolite Arts, and Tabsch, co-founder of the art film haven O Cinema, who are both established filmmakers.
The duo previously co-directed the 2018 documentary “The Last Resort,” a tribute to the work of photographers Andy Sweet and Gary Monroe, which doubled as an eloquent history of Miami Beach and its 1970s heyday as a haven for fun-loving retirees from around the nation.
“Naked Ambition” is also another tale of the history of Miami Beach, where Yeager began photographing her models because she didn’t have a studio. The pictures contributed greatly to the international appeal of Miami Beach as what Larry King (interviewed before his death) describes in the film as a “busting-loose, devil-may-care, let-it-all happen place” in the 1950s and ’60s. But the sandy beaches also served as an inspiration for Yeager.
“There is a particular gaze through which Bunny looked at her models,” said Tabsch. “It was the beauty of nudity and the female form and embracing the risqué aspect of that. That’s a different lens than a super-sexed one. A lot of her models were reluctant because of the stigma of posing nude.”
Tabsch said Yeager offered a safe haven for her subjects.
“For the most part, hardcore porn lacks an artistic lens, and that’s why Bunny’s work is timeless,” said Tabsch. “She was embracing nudity instead of telling her models, ‘I just want you to be the hot chick.’
“That’s part of what makes her work interesting. It was avant-garde for its time.”
“Naked Ambition” took three years to complete, although Scholl said the gestation period was much longer than that. He first approached Yeager with the idea 13 years ago, and she politely declined.
But Scholl never gave up.
“I am nothing if not persistent,” said Scholl. “In 2014, she finally said, ‘Let’s do it.’ She was going to come into the studio to be interviewed on a Thursday morning at 10 a.m. They called to postpone. Then at 4 o’clock in the afternoon, they called to say that she had been taken to the hospital; 10 days later she died.”
Scholl put the film on the shelf and didn’t think about it for four years. But after the national theatrical release of “The Last Resort,” someone asked what he was going to do next.
Cristobal Herrera / Sun Sentinel
In this 2013 photo, Bunny Yeager stands in her photo studio in Miami’s Wynwood neighborhood. (Cristobal Herrera/South Florida Sun Sentinel file)
“In business, I’ve learned you never say, ‘I don’t know.’ Kareem and I had such a good time working together, I asked him if he wanted to do another one. We started and then COVID came. But we stuck with it.”
Scholl and Tabsch will participate in post-screening discussions at select times on Saturday, Sept. 27, at O Cinema and both Saturday and Sunday, Sept. 27-28, at Coral Gables Art Cinema.
“Naked Ambition” showcases more than 300 of Yeager’s photos, culled from more than 1,000. They are curated in a way that allows the viewer to experience Yeager’s career from beginning to end and show how her style, subjects and sensibilities evolved over time.
“To shape the arc of the film, we thought in terms of both the phases of her career and her shifting role as a woman living in Miami from the late 1940s through the early 2010s,” said “Naked Ambition” editor Dia Kontaxis, professor at the Department of Cinematic Arts and associate dean for Research and Creative Activity at the University of Miami.
“We traced her beginnings as a young model, inventing herself as an artist, through the explosion of pin-up work in the 1950s and ’60s, to the decline of the genre during the era of sexual liberation and the rise of mass-market magazines. Finally, we explored the period when people began rediscovering her work and reframing her legacy,” said Kontaxis.
The result is a frank, warm and hugely entertaining film that celebrates a style of photography more often treated as kitsch than serious, timeless art.
“She believed she was doing something artistic, and she was,” said Scholl. “She is a museum artist. When she died, she was on the front page of The New York Times. She went on [Johnny Carson’s show]. She was a huge star, but those times were so different.”
IF YOU GO
WHAT: “Naked Ambition”
WHEN: Opens Friday, Sept. 26
WHERE:
COST: Prices vary by location
INFORMATION: musicboxfilms.com
ArtburstMiami.com is a nonprofit media source for the arts featuring fresh and original stories by writers dedicated to theater, dance, visual arts, film, music and more.